Woman Magazine UK

The Way I See It...

Does being too popular do more harm than good? CSI star Jorja Fox says her blessing in disguise was Not Always Fitting In.

‘Where I grew up, I wasn’t even close to being cool. My family lived in the smallest, most rural town in Florida, called Melbourne Beach, and it was an outdoors-y community where beauty was all about being tanned and blonde.

But I was chubby, awkward and fair-skinned with dark hair - and a 10p-sized gap between my teeth.

And it wasn’t just my body that didn’t fit in. Both my parents were from immigrant families in Montreal, Canada, before they emigrated to the US. My mum was French Canadian and my dad is Irish. After I was born in New York, we moved to Florida when I was three and joined a long-established Southern community.

Certain things about my family seemed quite eccentric. My grandmother used to cook chicken in a rotisserie on the front porch and people would walk by and stare, saying, **What" is that machine? What is she doing? And “why” is it on the porch?’ We were definitely weird.

My mum was a big champion for me when I was growing up. She was very classic and reserved and manners mattered most to her. So we didn’t speak much about physical beauty – it wasn’t so important. She was very, very poor and homeless during the Depression – she was 40 years older than me – so having chubby kids was the greatest thing in the world to her. That’s why she had three fridges!

I still got along OK though. I wasn’t the most popular kid at school but that can be a good thing. I was able to float in and out of lots of social circles. I had an amazing childhood.

My life changed when, ironically, I won a modelling contest at the local shopping plaza. I was the most surprised at my win. I was laughed at when my picture appeared in the paper. At school the next day the other kids were asking, ‘what kind of contest “was” that, surely there’s a mistake?’

But winning opened up a universe of possibilities for me. I ended up catwalk modelling in New York as a teenager before becoming an actress in my 20s.

But I feel like I’m still making the transition and can’t help but think, ‘I’ll probably get fired today.’ My life is so charmed I can’t quite believe it.

I didn’t even think it was going to last when I first landed the role of Sara Sidle on CSI. I thought it would be a short-term job. When it started six years ago, there weren’t any other crime shows like it, and we didn’t think anyone would want to watch a drama about death on a Friday night. But now it’s a worldwide phenomenon and unravelling murders has proved magnetic.

I’m not surprised “CSI”’s audience in the UK is 75 per cent female. Women naturally have an investigative streak and are good at piecing things together. Also, there’s something about “CSI” that tells you, without any doubt, the truth. Ninety per cent of the time we solve the case by the end of the show and I think that’s something people find very satisfying.’